


Learn By Going

by jessebee



Series: Side-Slip [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Friendship, M/M, Messy Emotional Splatters, Obi-Wan Needs a Hug, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Qui-Gon Is Learning, Qui-Gon Lives, Shmi is an awesome mom, Slash, Slavery, Tea!, The Fic What Ate My Brain, Time Travel Fix-It, Unexplained Time Travel Shenanigans, because I said so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-25
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2019-03-23 20:42:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13795947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessebee/pseuds/jessebee
Summary: Discoveries are made and things are learned on the journey from Tatooine to Coruscant.





	1. Overview

 

 

 _I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow._  
_I feel my fate in what I cannot fear._  
_I learn by going where I have to go._

_ Theodore Roethke _

 

*

 

Finally.

Sitting alone at last in the _Swiftstar's_ galley, with a much-needed cup of hot black tea in front of him, Qui-Gon gave in.

He laced his fingers together over the cup and rested his forehead against them and closed his eyes, feeling wisps of rising steam brushing his face. Breathed in the dearly-missed smell, letting it take him, calm him into the Moment, into a light, brief meditation. Into peace.

He was tired.

Physically, yes, but more than that: he was _tired_ , feeling his years in a way he usually did not. After all, he wasn't even halfway through his subspecies' normal life-span. If “normal” could be applied to a Jedi.

The last few days – “emotional maelstrom” just about covered it. It had been like plotting gravitational re-entry in a failing ship _without_ a navicomp, only to find halfway down that somebody'd sabotaged the engine as well.

 The pain of his first bad misstep with Obi-Wan and then the whiplash shock of realizing his own physical desire for his padawan – a desire that simply _could not be_ , not as long as Obi-Wan _was_ his padawan.

The sadness and sorrow of what Obi-Wan – what Ben – had endured in this life, driven to self-abuse by things he couldn't comprehend, cut off and away from the only family he knew.

Qui-Gon's own deepening sorrow as he had begun to comprehend the true severity of his student's emotional wounds, hidden beneath the scarring from his first life.

_Oh, Obi-Wan._

 

They had rested for a while in that cabin, after Obi-Wan’s wrenching confession. Just the three of them huddled together, sharing warmth and comfort: Qui-Gon in light meditation, Anakin in sleep, the demands of his child's body not to be denied, and Obi-Wan sheltered between them, in unconsciousness more than true slumber.

If there was any justice – at all, anywhere in the cosmos – Obi-Wan wouldn’t remember that confession.

Later, Qui-Gon and Anakin had arranged Obi-Wan's limp form into the bunk properly. Qui-Gon had held his padawan with arms and Force while Anakin manipulated sheets and blankets, then located an extra blanket and piled that on as well, against the chill that pervaded even the best starships.

That accomplished, Anakin had tugged until Qui-Gon had come down to his level, whereupon Qui-Gon had been treated to another one of Anakin's all-out hugs. “I'm gonna go find Mom again,” Anakin had said when he'd finished making it hard for Qui-Gon to breathe. “Is he gonna sleep for a while?”

“Long enough for tea and a meal, certainly,” Qui-Gon said, and Anakin had nodded.

 

Well, he'd gotten the tea, anyway, he thought wryly, as Depa Billaba slipped into the galley. Not that Qui-Gon needed to open his eyes to know it was her – he'd known that lovely Force-signature since she'd been a small, slight child, first rescued and then apprenticed by Mace Windu.

Clinks, and the drift of smell described Depa's making herself a cup of tea, the all-purpose Maa green unless Qui-Gon missed his guess. Further sounds indicated her moving toward and taking the seat at a right angle to himself. Silence followed, and the calm of the Force, and stillness; even among Jedi, Depa had always excelled at that.

“You do know, Master Qui-Gon,” Depa said eventually, after a good many minutes of peaceful tea-consumption, “how very few Council members expected you to ever be able to actually _produce_ the padawan?”

Qui-Gon opened his eyes. “That,” he replied, “shows a lack of faith in the Force, I would say.”

Depa huffed a quiet laugh. “You would.”

Qui-Gon let his own smile pull at the corners of his mouth. “After how many years, you expected differently?”

“From you? Of course not,” Depa said wryly. She tilted her head, the light gleaming softly on the jewels between her eyes. “You're different now, in some ways, than you were when I was a padawan, and before your dreams began, but the core of you is unchanged.” One eyebrow arched. “I learned much from your and Mace's 'discussions' over the years, you know. Have I mentioned that before?”

“Nearly all of it bad, no doubt,” Qui-Gon said placidly, and took a sip of his Sapir. Wonderful stuff, tea.

“That – would depend on one’s point of view,” Depa said, equally placid.

It was Qui-Gon’s turn to laugh. “Oh, indeed. Well, I can guess at Mace’s anyway,” he said, and leaned back against the padded seat-back, cup warm between his hands.

“Indeed,” Depa echoed, before she sobered. “He misses those discussions, he truly does.”

“As do I, Depa,” Qui-Gon said softly. And he did. In fact, save for his lately quite rare visits to the Council Chamber, he hadn't actually laid eyes on Mace Windu in rather a long while.

Not that he himself had put forth much real effort to change that, Qui-Gon acknowledged. He and Mace had rarely agreed, but then that had never actually been the point. And Qui-Gon had long since come to both understanding and forgiveness of the part Mace had played in Qui-Gon's own long stretch of time in-Temple.

Well. He'd be seeing Mace now, that was certain, at least in official capacity. “How is he?”

Depa brushed one fingertip against the surface of her cup for a time. “Unsettled. Uncomfortable, to the point of having occasional – difficulty in his duties.”

That raised Qui-Gon's eyebrows in concern.

“We came to the conclusion that the great disturbance in the Force those two months ago must have involved you, as you have an unquestioned talent for disturbing things.”

Qui-Gon had another mouthful of his tea.

“The shatterpoints he has seen around you, that appeared when your dreams began, had shifted dramatically when he saw you after that disturbance. They shifted again when you requested permission to go on Search to Tatooine. This situation pains him, Qui-Gon, beyond the usual; I believe that is why I was asked to come. This is a vergence: you and Obi-Wan and young Anakin.”

Qui-Gon nodded. “Obi-Wan and Anakin are, most certainly. You have questions, Councilor.”

“I do, Master Jinn,” she said, the formality a signal, and a single breath shifting her from the delightful former padawan of a friend to one of the youngest Jedi ever to sit in the Council Chamber, with a knack for strategy and a mind like a durasteel vornskr trap.

“They are such, Anakin and Obi-Wan, as I have never seen nor heard of outside of myth and legend, particularly if the tale Master Giiett told us is true. Anakin alone would be more than enough, with the enormous ability I sense in him. You have taken their counts?”

By which she meant midichlorians, and Qui-Gon shook his head. He had thought of it at first and then ignored it, deeming it frankly irrelevant in light of their demonstrated abilities. And in Obi-Wan's case… well. A subject best left alone until the Temple Healers could make a start, lest his padawan's concerns become self-fulfilling prophecy.

“Anakin is potential,” Depa went on, although her noting of his “lapse” was obvious. “He is poised on an edge; there is Darkness in his past, fear and fury and destruction, though he is now of the Light.”

Which matched chillingly close to Qui-Gon's own perceptions, the ones he'd kept deeply, tightly locked away. His hands tightened on his cup.

“But Obi-Wan? Young Kenobi appears physically to be just a young Human and perhaps a frail one at that – until you look into his eyes. But in the Force, he is – ” Depa shook her head. “His Force-presence, what he is showing us of it, is unique. He feels damaged, yet still he is incredibly strong. He feels like a Master and a well-seasoned one at that; a Combat Master and one, I suspect, with far, far more experience than Micah or anyone else I have ever met. He has seen too much, and I believe he has known sadness almost unimaginable, and yet – He is full of Light.”

Her dark eyes sharpened. “What shaped him, Master Jinn? _Who_ is he? And _what_ is he?”

What, indeed?

How could one possibly sum up Obi-Wan?

“He is a gift, Depa,” Qui-Gon said, the words coming from Force and feeling and from his deepest heart. “A gift, without peer or compare. And a warning.”

 

* * *

 


	2. Syllabus

 

 

“You've got a message from the Council,” Micah said by way of greeting, swiveling around in the copilot's chair as Qui-Gon ducked into the shuttle's cockpit. The thing was a cave: cold, and far more suited to beings of Micah's or Obi-Wan's height than Qui-Gon's, and the red-toned working lights did little to cheer it.

“How surprising,” Qui-Gon replied, dryly. He spared only a quick look out at the stars in hyperspace distortion, automatically quelling his body's complaint. Damn things still made him vaguely queasy, even after decades of space travel. Perhaps that was the true divider between competent pilots and those crazy beings who literally lived to fly, like Garen and – according to Obi-Wan – Anakin.

He refocused on Micah. “Real-time?”

His friend just raised an eyebrow. “Subspace squirt, just after we left Coruscant. Do you want it in private?”

Did it need to be private? “The contents are sensitive?”

Micah's synthleather flight jacket creaked a soft complaint as he shrugged, the motion Giiett-speak for 'It's Council-related and I'll neither confirm nor deny.'

Qui-Gon let the little prick of annoyance flow through him and away. “Play it here, then,” he said, settling into one of the rear station seats, absently noting its faint odor of ancient ration bars and sweat. “I suspect it's nothing Garen hasn't heard before, in some form or another.”

“I'm not listening.” Garen's voice floated in from around the back of the pilot's chair, and Qui-Gon's mouth quirked. Padawans to Council members learned discretion early, or they didn't remain padawans to Council members. Garen had been Micah's apprentice for more than eight years now.

“Of course not, Padawan,” Qui-Gon agreed mildly, and Micah reached over and triggered the rear comm console, which promptly produced a small, translucent holo of Senior Jedi Master Mace Windu.

“Master Jinn; greetings in the Force. As you are watching this message, I shall assume that you are on-board the shuttle _Swiftstar_ and in transit back to Coruscant. You are required to appear before the Council immediately upon your arrival at the Temple, and to present to us the beings for whom you evidently chose to – delay – your response to the Council's first request.”

“Nicely put, Mace,” Qui-Gon murmured, watching the miniature Master of the Order. Depa was right: even in image, Mace looked – worn, although a being would have to know the man very, very well to see that.

“The report Master Giiett brought to us was – ” Mace paused. “Interesting.”

Micah snorted. “Yes, that's the word that was used.”

“And while the situation described no doubt contains shades of truth beyond what were told to the Council, there are nonetheless currents and shifts in the Force which Master Yoda feels have to do with those beings. Nor has the rest of the galaxy slept in your absence. We anticipate your swift and safe return, Master Jinn. May the Force be with you.”

The holo winked out, leaving the cockpit illuminated once more only by the working lights and equipment panels, and the rippling glow of the hyperlights.

Hands tucked into his sleeves, Qui-Gon gripped his elbows, feeling the chill of his own fingers even through his undertunic. He regarded his crèche-mate and oldest friend. “They did not believe you,” he stated. After all these years, he was utterly unsurprised. And yet, still – it stung.

Micah crossed his arms over his own chest, his jacket creaking again. “That your vision is made flesh and walks with you, Force-born? They'd have been more likely to believe the return of the Sith. If I hadn't been there and felt his Presence for myself… ”

“And so Depa is here, to assess the situation.” _And see if the maverick Master has finally lost it completely._

“Because Yoda sent her, yes.”

 _Not Mace?_ Qui-Gon's eyebrows rose. “That is surprising.” What was his Grandmaster up to? Because he _was_ up to something – more than forty-odd years as Yoda’s grandpadawan had imbued Qui-Gon with some little bits of insight.

“Perhaps not.” Micah looked like he might say more, then shook his head. “You should send them your reply.”

And say what? This wasn't an argument to start having over hyperwave transmission, no matter how secure. Because argument it would surely be, despite the fact that the Force was utterly clear if one bothered to quiet and listen to it.

On the other hand…

On the other hand, he did have a reputation, did he not? A well-founded and justly-earned reputation, of long standing. Yet he’d spent so much time these last years living an “inner” life rather than an “outer” one, that perhaps the memories of certain beings had dimmed. Perhaps it was time to remind those certain beings of just why Qui-Gon Jinn had that reputation.

Perhaps it was time – past time – that he reminded himself.

The Force was calm, steady and Light. Peaceful.

Yes. This was right.

But still, not in real-time over hyperwave.

Qui-Gon subdued the threatening grin before he triggered the comm, setting it to record.

“Masters of the High Council: I give you greetings in the Force. I am indeed returning to the Temple aboard the _Swiftstar_ , in the company of the beings whom I sought: my padawan, and his two companions, one of whom I present for entry as an Initiate and the other to whom I have given sanctuary as a guest of the Order.”

He heard Micah sigh.

“The details of the situation do indeed hold several shades of meaning, but all of them center around only one truth: that this is, beyond any doubt, the Will of the Force. That Master Yoda feels that the Force shifts around them, and us, is no surprise. We are presented, my Masters, with both a gift out of legend and prophecy, and a warning – we ignore them not only at our individual peril, but at that of our Order and of the entire Republic.

“We will, all of us, attend the Council as soon as we may, upon arrival. May the Force be with you.”

Stopping the recording, Qui-Gon did a quick quality check and sent it off. Anticipation was a slow stretch and curl in his stomach, something too long a-slumber finally coming awake.

When he turned, he found Micah regarding him with dark, discerning eyes. His friend leaned toward him, the motion sending soft light glow darting along creases in his clothing and dancing over the shaved patterns on his scalp. “You've just got to put the katkin in with the bulabirds, don't you?”

Qui-Gon raised his eyebrows in serene question.

Micah chuckled. “And Force help me, I've _missed_ that. I've missed you, my friend,” he said, voice pitched to the space just between the two of them. “He's good for you.”

“You will remember you said that, I am sure, when I walk him into the Council Chamber as my padawan, will you not?” Qui-Gon got an unseemly amount of satisfaction out of Micah's eye-roll.

 

* * *

 


	3. Illumination

 

 

She was a spot of warmth in the Force, but not one of calm. Qui-Gon surfaced gently out of meditation the third time he felt her, hesitating yet again outside the door of the cabin he and Obi-Wan were sharing.

Well, Qui-Gon was sharing.

Obi-Wan was still dead to the galaxy, completely and soundly asleep. Sleeping peacefully, too; his student's body and mind both relaxed.

Qui-Gon feathered a touch down their link and heard/felt nothing but the gentle nonsense babble of the unconscious, no hint of the earlier headache or another Vision, or one of the unpleasant dreams Obi-Wan had finally admitted to having, back on Tatooine.

Good. Because the next one of those he had, Qui-Gon fully intended to be there to stop.

They had not shared dreams, or at least not any that Qui-Gon truly remembered, since just after Obi-Wan had awoken in this timeline. There’d been a kind of relief in his student’s eyes when Qui-Gon had confirmed that.

That had been a big clue.

Qui-Gon had far more than just a suspicion now that everything Obi-Wan had faced, the man had dealt with alone. Dealt with, released, or as likely just pushed down – every bit of the heartbreak and loneliness that he'd admitted to, there in Qui-Gon's arms, after drugs and exhaustion had cracked the wall at last.

_Well, not here, dear one. Not this time._

Rising to his feet, he feathered an equally light touch across Obi-Wan's hair, smoothing the right-side braid where it meandered across the pillow, his fingertips lingering a second longer on the dark green tie at the end. It needed neatening; the whole length needed rebraiding. Perhaps Obi-Wan would agree to Qui-Gon rebraiding it again, reaffirming that commitment between them.

And if it also gave Qui-Gon another few moments of private intimacy, of the close focus of Obi-Wan’s _deep-root sun-warm-sparkle_ Presence and the solid nearness of his padawan’s body…?

Stop.

 _And_ _call that only_ _'_ _sentiment,_ _'_ _perhaps,_ _will you,_ _Master Jinn?_

Qui-Gon shut his eyes and centered, taking a deep breath. _And have it be a lie I tell myself? I have admitted what it is: I will not go back. But it must live in silence until, if ever, it may be spoken. The future is not yet; I can – I **must** – live only in this Moment._

The love settled, a sustaining warmth beneath his heart. The desire he released, and welcomed the peace of the Force in its place.

He stepped silently out into the corridor, closing the door behind himself. “Shmi?”

Shmi jerked around to face him, the motion lacking most of her normal grace. The drab grays of her clothing seemed to meld her into the shuttle's metal walls, leaving only a white face and wide, dark eyes. “Master Qui-Gon. Did I – I'm sorry, I've disturbed you. I'm so sorry.”

_Master?_

Qui-Gon’s earlier concern resurfaced. “You did not, Shmi; my meditation was nearing an end. But you are disturbed, I think. What is it?”

“I – ” Her gaze dropped to his chest and she blinked, and visibly set herself before she looked back up. “How is Ben?”

Which was not what was disturbing her, he sensed. But her feeling of unrest had muffled; nowhere near a Jedi-level of control but for someone untrained, very good indeed. The shields around her, that he'd thought in the beginning to be someone else's, he had come to realize over the last month were hers alone, natural and instinctive. What was _her_ midichlorian count?

“Sleeping still. See,” Qui-Gon said softly, waving the door open and motioning with his head.

Shmi looked past him and then slipped around him into the room, which he'd not actually meant for her to do. But Obi-Wan didn't stir as she leaned over him; his breath remained slow and even.

Shmi raised one hand to Obi-Wan's forehead, as she'd done back in the hovel but not touching him this time, and Qui-Gon felt it again: a soft ripple in the Force, so faint this time that he would have missed it had he not been _watching_.

Natural. A purely instinctive Force-user. A compassionate soul, her kindness only annealed by her hardships and enslavement. Shmi Skywalker _should have been_ one of them – she belonged among the Jedi every bit as much as her son did.

It would be Qui-Gon's duty and pleasure to find a path to keep her there.

Never-mind that he was flying in the face of hundreds of years of Jedi tradition. That he was still working through his own unease at all the ways this was flirting with “attachment” right up to the micro-thin edge. Qui-Gon would follow the Force, as best he could hear it. And these last hours of meditation had made this, among other things, quite clear: Shmi needed to be at the Temple.

Oh, yes, the Council's reaction to Qui-Gon's intentions for Lady Skywalker – and to Shmi herself – would be most interesting.

Back out in the corridor and with the door closed behind them, Shmi took a step back to look at up at Qui-Gon, as she always did: she didn't even come up to his shoulder. “Thank you. These last days have been hard on him. I hadn't seen him hurting like that since the week right after Ani and I brought him home.”

“I have said it before, I know, but you have, and will always have, my utmost gratitude, far more than I can ever express, for your care and kindness,” Qui-Gon said. “I owe you an eternal debt, Shmi.”

Shmi shook her head, one hand smoothing at the coarse fabrics of her over-tunic and skirts. “He was important to my son before I began to understand even a little of what he is. Of what he and Ani – are. Now. And I would have helped in any case, if I could. The galaxy would be a better place if there were more kindness in it.”

Simple and profound. What a remarkable being she was. “Shmi. Please. What disturbs you?”

“What will be my duties when we reach the Jedi Temple?” The words were brittle; her gaze dropped to the center of his chest. The unrest Qui-Gon had sensed earlier had returned and with it – _fear_ , acrid in the Force. “Do you know?”

Qui-Gon blinked. “Duties?”

“The Jedi have bought us, my son and I.”

It took a precious few seconds for her words to make sense. “Shmi, _**no**_ ,” Qui-Gon said, his chest going cold and painful. “That's _not_ it. You're _free_ – _the Jedi don't own you,_ either of you.”

“Master Giiett – with his own money, Ani said, then why – ?”

“ _ **No**_ _,”_ Qui-Gon repeated. He touched her shoulders; she was trembling. “That money was a gift. You're _free_. Micah took the powercells from the controllers and destroyed them, and as soon as we reach Coruscant I'm taking you both immediately to MedCorp to get your bio-trackers removed.”

Shmi stared up at him, her eyes much too wide – Force, the woman was still in shock and no one had seen it. Micah, Depa, how had they both missed this? How had her son? How had he himself missed this? “You _are_ free, truly.”

“Why?”

A bare whisper, hoarse and shaky. To have lived so long in the nightmare of slavery that she hardly remembered otherwise – how did a sentient being deal with the sudden, explosive light of freedom?

“Because it's right, and just,” Qui-Gon said softly. “Because he could, and because he's a good, compassionate being. Because there are so many, too many, times that we as Jedi see wrong done and yet we're unable to right it – this, he could do. And because you're right: how beautiful could the galaxy be if there were more kindness in it?”

“I – ” Shmi's eyes shimmered, and she closed them as they welled over, a single drop glistening down each of her cheeks.

Qui-Gon gathered her close. Her hair smelled like sand and old metals and she wept into his tunics, shivering, bleeding shock and dawning belief into the Force, shattered by this unknown, terrifying thing that might be happiness.

 

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is longer, I promise :-)


	4. Lesson(s)

 

 

Was it the mattress that had woken him up?

If so, it made rather an interesting and perhaps even a nice change from the dreams – the memories, his own and “Ben's” – that had been keeping Obi-Wan's sleep in this new life occasionally ragged. But really, the mattress?

Because the thing was too comfortable. And truly, the irony of saying that about a Jedi transport shuttle bunk, of all things, did not escape him.

But he'd slept for nineteen years, in his little dwelling by the Jundland Wastes, on nothing but rough cloth, a little synthpol, a little of the tough local poonten grass beaten into a semblance of softness, and what few layers of fabrics could be spared. These last months in Mos Espa, with Anakin and Shmi, had been much the same. He simply was not used to comfort anymore.

He also wasn't used to a bed partner, whether a lover or not; he hadn’t slept with anyone else in a very, very long time.

 _But oh,_ _I could be_ _used to it_ , Obi-Wan thought, ambushed on the edge of waking, before decades of Mastery reasserted control, staring at the man lying only inches away: _I could be,_ _so much,_ _with him_ _._

Qui-Gon lay on his back beside Obi-Wan, on top of the bedclothes rather than under them. He slept relaxed beneath his cloak for a blanket, exactly as he'd done on countless missions during Obi-Wan's padawan days.

There was that slightest of whistles that Obi-Wan remembered so well, the result of the nose broken long before Obi-Wan's time, that his master had never had reset. Long bronze hair, liberally streaked with gray and silver, spread across the arm being used as a pillow, and a few strands wandered between the half-curled fingers of one big hand. Qui-Gon's face was relaxed, his noble profile distinct against the bland metal-gray of the wall.

His master’s body-heat pervaded the scant space between them, wonderful against the chill edge in the air; and every breath Obi-Wan took brought him the warm smell of Qui-Gon's skin, that dark-sweet scent like _d'ko_ nut spice. And the Force around him was near-tangible with Qui-Gon’s Presence, deep, calm, safe…

Oh, this was true comfort. A fanciful reading of the situation might say that this was why Obi-Wan had slept well and without dreams, or without any that he remembered.

But why was Qui-Gon sleeping here, on the same bed? Because if Obi-Wan remembered aright, this version of the shuttle had one or two cabins arranged for master/padawan pairs, with two bunks?

He looked carefully over his shoulder. Ah.

Because Obi-Wan had evidently had the bad form to fall asleep on the “master” bunk, the larger of the two, and Qui-Gon must have decided that sharing it would still be preferable to contorting to fit on the smaller “padawan” one.

It wasn’t as though they’d never shared a bed before when mission circumstances gave them little choice… But they weren’t doing that kind of intimate comfort anymore, he must remember that.

Were they?

But Qui-Gon had gathered him up onto this bunk and held him, helped him trigger the Cirsha relaxation technique and then had still held him, through what Obi-Wan dimly remembered as a very unseemly, embarrassingly dramatic, ridiculously self-pitying monologue. Qui-Gon had sheltered him, close and warm, until Obi-Wan had – fallen asleep? As though… as if…

He should move.

He should get up, carefully, and give this bunk entirely over to Qui-Gon. Obi-Wan had been a Master for years and it was far past time he acted like one. He needed to meditate on this – on this last tenday, certainly, at the very least – and seek truth, not let his own wishes and – desires – take hold. He should. He would.

Obi-Wan took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

He would, in a moment or two, because surely it could not be so wrong to savor this, to live in this Moment…

. 

. 

. 

_//_ “ _That part of the Code is wrong, Obi-Wan.”//_

 _//“ …_ _I know.”//_

.

.

.

_//“Oh, you're hurting, sweet thing, aren't you?”//_

_//“ **Damn** you, **please** – ”//_

_//“Then suck it, Ben-boy, put your mouth right, yes – ah **yeah** – ”//_

.

.

.

 _//“_ _Go on, then, and don't come back!_ _You never belonged here anyway!”_ _//_

_._

_._

_._

_// “…_ _too late – train him – too late too late_ _**too late –** _ _”//_

 

Obi-Wan shuddered awake, gasping, flung out his arm, hit nothing but bedding – _reached_ –

– and instantly found Qui-Gon. _Deep-well Force-calm._ Steady. Near. Alive.

He slumped back against the mattress and closed his eyes, the hot-cold-shock of adrenaline racing beneath his skin, breathing deep and pulling the lingering scent of _Qui-Gon_ into his lungs –

Wordless query, immediate concern over the bond.

 _Peace_ , he sent. _A bad dream. All is well._

Warmth and deep affection swelled around him, a metaphysical hug. Then words: _~Go back to sleep.~_

 _~I think – I am slept out, actually. And blessedly free of headache, as well,~_ Obi-Wan said, with faint surprise and dawning delight. _~Perhaps meditation, instead.~_

_~Very good. And I shall join you for your firstmeal, after, if you wish.~_

Firstmeal. Food. Food – _Oh_.

Obi-Wan's stomach abruptly woke up also, with a vengeance, and his eyes popped open. Just how long had he been asleep? _~_ _Wait, food?_ _Food that does not involve Tatooine spices, perhaps?~_

Amusement. _~Just so. In fact, Anakin has already commented on_ _precisely_ _that.~_

 _~And there_ _is_ _– tea?_ ~

Mind laughter, rich and delighted. _~Shall I begin heating water for you?~_

_~That's a ridiculous question. I'll be there in five minutes.~_

 

*

 

In fact it was seven minutes, but Obi-Wan thought he'd be forgiven the lapse. Four minutes with the sonics, and he spent another few seconds yanking his hair back into a half-tail. Both of his braids needed work, too. Obi-Wan ran his fingers distractedly down the right-side one, lingering on the bit of dark green thread that Qui-Gon had added to the end when he'd first offered to rebraid it, two days after arriving on Tatooine…

 _Sentiment_ _**after** _ _tea, Kenobi._

Obi-Wan donned his clean clothing – his only other clothing, in point of fact. No doubt Shmi's doing that he had it here, as it'd been her doing that he'd had it at all. Threadworn shirt, a wrapped over-tunic, and pants in the same horrible grays that Shmi herself wore, and Obi-Wan suspected that they were in fact hers, sacrificed to clothe him.

“Slave” gray, Anakin called it.

Obi-Wan was very, very much looking forward to changing the color of Shmi's wardrobe.

He followed his nose to the galley, which had crammed into it Qui-Gon Jinn, some foodstuffs on the tiny table which were definitely not from Tatooine, and –

“Blessed little stars,” Obi-Wan said reverently and inhaled over the steaming cup his master held out to him. “Ooh. Ykln Black?”

“Very good,” Qui-Gon said, smiling. “One minute more and that will be fully steeped. Sadly it is bagged tea rather than proper loose-leaf, but one must be content as one can. Did I teach you to appreciate tea, Padawan?”

“You did, Master, you did,” Obi-Wan breathed, counting off the seconds in his head. “I liked it as a child anyway, but I learned how to make a proper cup from you.” He inhaled again. Almost…

“Sweetener?” Qui-Gon asked.

Better and better. “Just a little,” Obi-Wan said.

The timer in his head dinged and he fished out the tea packet by its little string and deposited it in the recycler. Not waiting for the sweetener, he lifted the cup and took a careful sip.

Flavor rushed over his tongue, an old and much-missed friend, and Obi-Wan stilled, closing his eyes. Bliss.

“Should I leave you two alone?” Qui-Gon sounded quite unfairly amused.

 _I am a Jedi Master, I will_ **not** _stick my tongue out at_ _the man_ _._ “Do you know how long it has been since I've had quality tea? _Real_ tea?” Obi-Wan opened his eyes and stared down his nose at his teacher and mentor, a feat only accomplished because said teacher and mentor was sitting down. “Twenty years; more than, in fact. This is a joyous, longed-for reunion, Qui-Gon; kindly allow me my moment.”

The smile that had been lurking broke free as Qui-Gon laughed out loud, the sound filling the small space.

He rose to his feet and waved Obi-Wan into a chair. “Sit, my friend, and enjoy your moment. How does hot kashmeal sound, with your ‘joyous reunion’?” he asked, stepping over to the small hot-prep. “It is that or the biscuits on the table, either toasted or cold, and pressed fruit. Variety was not top of mind for whomever last restocked this shuttle.”

Kashmeal, the utterly ordinary, completely ubiquitous firstmeal cereal of the Jedi Order. Another thing Obi-Wan hadn't eaten nor even seen in the last twenty years. Twenty-five if one counted the time he'd been dead. “Kashmeal is perfect,” he said, a little thickly, “but there's no need for you to – ”

“Drink your tea, Obi-Wan.”

“Yes, Master.” Obi-Wan buried his nose in his cup.

It was only a minute or two before Qui-Gon set down a bowl of hot kashmeal, a container of sweetener and another of _cernash_ spice in front of him, and relieved him of the empty tea mug only to return it full of hot water and another fragrant packet. Obi-Wan applied himself to food and drink as Qui-Gon resumed studying the datapadd at his elbow, and more minutes passed in companionable silence. So close to a thousand other mornings shared with this man, in mission transit to Force knew where.

The galley was as plain as Obi-Wan suspected the rest of the shuttle was, not that he'd seen the rest of it yet. Decorated simply in Order colors; functional, yet beautiful in the simplicity of line. Bare of adornment except for outlines and impressions, here and there, of another thing he'd not seen in plain view in more than twenty years: the “bird.”

Properly it was called the Seal of the Jedi, of course, comprised of the Wings of Knowledge and Enlightenment bearing up the lifted Blade of Peace and Justice – as close as that long-ago Jedi artisan could come shaping something which had no form: a visual representation of the Jedi's mission of service in and of the Force. But some wit of generations past had dubbed it the “'saberbird,” and the irreverent nickname had stuck.

Something like it had emerged in the days of the Rebel Alliance, the symbol the Rebels had called the starbird. But to see the true Seal again, now –

Obi-Wan ran a finger contemplatively over the barely-there lines gracing his cup, and swallowed around thickness in his throat that had nothing to do with the kashmeal.

Qui-Gon held off further conversation until Obi-Wan had finished his cereal, and a biscuit and some fruit as well, and was nursing the last of his second cup and thinking seriously of a third. “When you've decided you've finished, I will neaten your braid, both of them, if you'd like.”

If he'd _like?_ Obi-Wan swallowed. “I would like, very much.”

The wash of warmth in the Force couldn't be mistaken, but Qui-Gon only nodded at Obi-Wan's empty dishes. “I'm glad to see you with an appetite.”

As was Obi-Wan, but no matter for that. “A missed meal or two sometimes has that effect, particularly when one isn't as old as one used to be. How long was I asleep?”

“About two days.”

“ _Two days??”_

Qui-Gon was unperturbed. “Obviously you needed the rest.”

“Master, what – !”

“Of your own accord, Obi-Wan; I did nothing but watch over you.”

“I can _not_ have – ”

“Oh.”

They both turned at the new voice.

Garen Muln stood in the doorway, a touch of uncertainty on his blunt features. He wore darker tunics than when Obi-Wan had last seen him, but still the synthleather jacket topped them. “I'm sorry,” Garen said, “I'll – ”

“No-no, come in, Garen, it's fine,” Qui-Gon said, beckoning. “Join us. You’re most likely hungry? It should be safe, Obi-Wan stopped eating some minutes ago, but you might want to go sparingly on the tea.”

_~Master, really.~_

“Tea?” Garen said, shooting a look between Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan. “Don't drink it, Master Qui-Gon, you know that; not to my taste.”

Qui-Gon shook his head. “I blame Micah for that.”

“Me too, and thank the Force,” Garen said with a sudden grin, and Obi-Wan’s heart thumped. _There_ was his crèche-mate. “So I’m the last in? Any more of the sweet muffins?”

“I believe young Anakin claimed the last one,” Qui-Gon said. “But there is kashmeal.”

“There’s _always_ kashmeal,” Garen said, stepping over to the hot-prep.

 _Until there isn’t._ The thought hit Obi-Wan unbidden, but he kept it behind his teeth; he was not going to get melancholy over cereal, of all things. Which brought up another thought. “Where is everyone?” Because this type of shuttle wasn’t actually _that_ big.

“I assume Micah is flying?” Qui-Gon asked, and got a bob of the dark auburn padawan’s lock at the back of Garen’s head. “Which I suspect means Anakin is in the cockpit as well.”

A light touch on the training bond Obi-Wan shared with Anakin confirmed that. _~Hey, you’re awake!_ _~_ Anakin sent. _~_ _And feeling better!~_

_~I am, thank you. Qui-Gon is plying me with food and tea.~_

_~Best thing I’ve heard since we lifted off. Stay there and eat.~_

Obi-Wan rolled his eyes, in the metaphysical sense. _~Yes, Master Skywalker.~_

“He is. And his mother, too,” Garen was saying over his shoulder, “so Master chased me out to come eat. I think Master Billaba is meditating.” He turned with bowl in one hand and cup of something in the other, kaffin by the smell. He dropped himself into the empty chair between Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon, his jacket creaking softly, and dug in like he hadn’t seen food in a year.

And that was his old crèche-mate too – appetite like a starving akk-dog. Obi-Wan hid his smile in his tea. Then grimaced at the temperature of what was left and got up to make himself a fresh cup. _~Not a word,_ _Qui-Gon_ _._ ~

 _~Wouldn't dream of it._ ~

They sat, the three of them, in another companionable silence, punctuated by the soft sounds of utensils and the occasional clink of a mug. The air smelled good, like warm grains and hot, fortifying liquids.

But there was a sense of potential, perhaps, in the Force, a little questioning anticipation. Something was happening, Obi-Wan just wasn't sure what, quite yet.

It wasn't until Garen had finished his meal that Qui-Gon spoke again. “Padawan Muln.”

Garen blinked and looked up from whatever he was seeing in his cup. “Master Jinn? Oh.” A sudden straightening of the back, and Garen bowed his head, his braid falling forward across his shoulder.

“Garen, I was not and I am not offended,” Qui-Gon said, his voice deceptively mild.

Ah, _that_ was what was happening. Oh, did Obi-Wan know _that_ particular tone.

“But as you were the one to raise the point,” Qui-Gon continued, “you can be the one to explain it to Obi-Wan. My padawan should know what he's walking into.”

Walking into?

“Ah,” Garen said, sounding resigned. “Yes. Well. First,” and Garen looked at Obi-Wan now, “uhm, Padawan Kenobi, I apologize for our initial meeting. My courtesy was lacking, and – ”

“Obi-Wan.”

“ – I'm sorry?”

“Call me Obi-Wan,” Obi-Wan said softly. “All my friends do, and I hope that we'll become that, one day.”

An assessing golden-brown gaze, and then a bit of that smile lifted one corner of Garen's wide mouth. “Obi-Wan. Well. Master Jinn has – he had a reputation in the Temple for years as something of a rebel. Argues with the Council a lot.”

 _How_ _shocking_ _,_ Obi-Wan thought, amused.

“Only when necessary,” Qui-Gon rumbled.

“And it’s necessary a lot?”

“As you say.”

Another there-and-gone flash of Garen’s infectious grin, and it said volumes that he knew Qui-Gon well enough to tease. “But the last six or seven years, suddenly he's around the Temple more, a lot more. Like, all the time. And he's – quieter.”

Quieter.

“And of course there's rumors _because_ he's around when he never used to be. Maybe it's the Council short-leashing him, or something. And then there's _new_ rumors, that something's – not right.”

“Not right.” This was becoming less amusing.

“There's hush-talk about some padawan that nobody's ever seen or even heard of, after Master Jinn swore he'd wouldn’t take another student, which was fine ‘cause rumor was the Council wouldn't have let him anyway, not after – his second one.”

And less still. “Xanatos,” Obi-Wan murmured.

Garen looked startled and then intent, his mouth thinning. “Yeah. Du Crion. So when word started trickling around that he was saying that he _had_ a padawan – _in his head_ – a whole 'nother life he was living, people figured he was – ” Garen hesitated. “Off.”

“Off,” Obi-Wan repeated, eyes narrowing.

Garen opened his mouth. Shut it again. Looked at Qui-Gon, who only tilted his head and made a gesture that clearly indicated Garen should continue.

Garen sighed and looked back at Obi-Wan. “The rumor is that he's cracked. As in, crazy. Lost his mind. The master Discounter Of Prescience finally had a Vision and liked it so much he stayed there and nobody can pry him out, not even Yoda. So the Council grounded him in-Temple so he wouldn’t get himself killed, or give the Jedi a weirder reputation than we’ve already got, in some places.”

Obi-Wan stared. Force, what had the dreams been like, then, for Qui-Gon, to cause _that_ kind of reaction from the Council? And why in the name of the Light hadn't it occurred to Obi-Wan to ask that question sooner?

Garen shrugged. “Well, that's what's being said. That's why the Council wouldn't let him take another padawan even if he'd asked to. Sorry, Master Qui-Gon.”

“No need, Garen. You're in no way the first being to voice those rumors,” Qui-Gon replied, the Force around him serene. “Although you do have the dubious honor of being the first to say them to my face.”

“Really? Wow.” Garen looked thoughtful. “Anyway, so, suddenly Master Qui-Gon’s off on this Search mission with Master Micah and me, first time he's been off-planet in ages; and then we come back without him, and _then_ we're going back to get him with another Council member in tow and lo and behold, here's _you_ , and Anakin. And even to me it's pretty obvious that Anakin is a really unusual youngling, and whatever _you_ are?” Garen shook his head. “You're Jedi, but you're _not_ a padawan.”

Well.

Obi-Wan studied him, this Garen who wasn't his Garen. This Garen had harder layers – something had happened, something ugly, to teach him caution. This Garen had wound up apprenticed to Micah Giiett, not Clee Rhara. _This_ Garen was a Council Padawan.

Council Padawans learned early about knowledge that had to be kept secret.

The Force was a marvelous, mysterious thing.

“Do you remember,” Obi-Wan began, wrapping both hands around the comfortable shape of his cup, “some of the stories we were told in the crèche and the Initiate dorms, about the myths and legends of the Jedi past? The fantastical ones, you know, about the amazing things done with the Force, or maybe by the Force, nobody was ever really clear on that. The Aing-Tii Monks, the rumored Orb of Passage? The Darkstaff?”

“All the stories about time travel, yeah. Wait a minute. No.” Garen's cup hit the table with a thunk. “ _No_. You are _not_ serious.”

Obi-Wan assayed a half-smile. “In my defense, it truly was not my idea.”

“You are saying you're a _time traveler?!”_

“In a manner of speaking.”

“Well, _speak!”_

“This reality now, here, is the past for me, but it isn't quite _my_ past. In my life, I grew up in the Temple, as did you. In fact, I grew up _with_ you: you and Bant and Reeft were my crèche-mates.”

“How do you – ” Garen's mouth literally hung open. “You know – but that, this – okay, that's _crazy!”_

“Tell me about it,” Obi-Wan said wryly.

“Okay, wait,” Garen said, one hand raised, palm up, and Obi-Wan felt him release his emotions to the Force. Or try to. “Master Jinn?”

“Trust your feelings, Garen,” Qui-Gon said. “What do they tell you?”

“That you’re telling me the truth,” Garen said, staring straight and wide-eyed at Obi-Wan, “and that you’re a lot more than you look. And that you, and the kid, are dangerous.”

Obi-Wan’s breath caught.

Garen pushed back his chair sharply and stood, his face going smooth. “Your pardon, Master Jinn, – Padawan Kenobi. I am in need of meditation – and sleep – before I resume my duties as pilot. Excuse me.” A precise bow and he was gone, boot-heels echoing in the corridor.

_He's afraid of you._

Oh, that hurt.

Qui-Gon made a soft sound.

Obi-Wan unclenched his fingers from around his cup and dragged his gaze back from the open doorway. Qui-Gon looked thoughtful.

“Well,” Obi-Wan said, determinedly bright, “no 'sabres were lit, so that could have gone worse.”

“It will be well, Obi-Wan,” Qui-Gon murmured, with the distracted tone he sometimes got when listening to the Force.

And he was right, Obi-Wan knew; he felt it himself, that all would be well. Which in no way whatsoever meant that things would go the way Obi-Wan wanted, or wished or hoped. Just that – all would be well.

Which, like “balance,” might have infinite shades of meaning.

It wasn't enough.

“Obi-Wan?”

Obi-Wan almost shivered. “Will you meditate with me, Qui-Gon?”

Qui-Gon's night-sky blue eyes met his. “Always, dear one. You have only ever to ask.”

 

 

* * *

 


	5. Exercises

 

 

Everyone had gathered in the _Swiftstar’s_ cockpit, for no reason anyone was admitting to other than to watch the hyperlights.

Obi-Wan knew why he was there: an itch to be with other Jedi, even though the small space kept trying to blur into the memory of the last spaceflight he’d made, with the bright warmth of Luke’s potential and the smell of Wookiee fur.

This cockpit was roomier than the _Millenium Falcon’s_ had been, but still: with Garen and Micah up front, Shmi in the engineering seat behind Micah and Anakin not quite standing still next to her, Obi-Wan himself at the nav station, Qui-Gon looming behind him and Depa braced in the doorway, “crowded” wasn’t the word. Obi-Wan felt a bit like produce zip-packed for shipment.

“What's needed here,” Micah suddenly announced into the silence, slapping hands on thighs in a most un-Masterly fashion, “is some exercise. There's twitchiness in the air and I've decided that I am tired of shielding against it. Everybody into the main hold, we're going to work out.”

“Great!” Anakin bounced on both feet. “C’mon, Mom!”

“If I won’t be in the way?” Shmi asked, looking at Micah, who’d turned in the copilot's seat to smile at her.

“Not at all.”

Exercise, Obi-Wan thought, sounded utterly wonderful right now and actual sparring – with an actual lightsabre – sounded even better. Except that he didn’t have one yet, and –

“The hold’s pretty small for that,” Garen said to Micah, from the pilot’s chair.

“Then you'll have to keep the Ataru to a minimum, won't you?”

“Master – ”

“Everybody up,” Micah said. “You too, Garen.”

“But the ship – ”

“ – is in hyperspace and will mind itself quite nicely for a little while. Up, Padawan.”

“I trust I won’t need to persuade you?” Qui-Gon rumbled at Obi-Wan, quite clearly amused.

“Part of that twitchiness might well _be_ me,” Obi-Wan confessed, “so – no.”

 

*

 

Depa met them in the main hold, bright-eyed and barefoot. She'd already pulled the practice mats out and floored the space with them, and was doing warm-up stretches, unconsciously graceful.

Anakin stripped out of his boots and socks and went to join her. He caught her attention with a small bow before he flopped onto the mat and reached for his toes, ignoring the little preliminary stretches he should have done first, just like he always had.

It was utterly mundane and ordinary, the same things Obi-Wan had seen nearly every day of his life in the Temple, and he abruptly swallowed around a lump in his throat. Dammit, he was not going to get melancholy over _warm-up exercises_ , either.

He took off his own footgear and did his preliminaries, then went over to sink down in front of Anakin. The movements _were_ becoming easier, thankfully. “Push-pull?”

Anakin grinned at him and stuck out his feet, bare soles pressing against Obi-Wan's. “This brings back memories,” he said as they clasped hands, and then narrowed his eyes. “And no tickling.”

“Anakin, I'm shocked.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Would I do that?” Obi-Wan asked gravely.

“After I threatened you earlier, when we first met Master Depa? Why'd you think I said it?” Anakin retorted, and pulled, gently.

Obi-Wan pulled back. “That was _days_ ago now, you know,” he remonstrated, exaggeratedly polite.

A snort from his padawan. “And _you_ gotta long memory.”

They were still stretching, more slowly than the others in deference to Obi-Wan's relative lack of conditioning, when Garen and Micah started on open-hand katas. Depa and Qui-Gon had already paired up on the far side. Both pairs had chosen First Form, Shii Cho.

“Begin at the beginning,” Anakin quipped softly, echoing Obi-Wan's comment of a few days ago.

“Qui-Gon always liked that Form,” Obi-Wan said, flattening out into front splits. Oh, it was good to have his flexibility coming back, at last.

“He looks good,” Anakin said. “It suits him. He didn't use that for real, though, did he?”

“No. Ataru, mostly.”

Anakin's eyebrows went up. “Not Djem So? Why?”

Obi-Wan raised his own eyebrows. Had they never spoken of this? “Because it didn't suit him, so… ”

“It wasn't expected. Or that's what he thought,” Anakin said, and back-flipped himself upright. “But once somebody figured him out, was he fast enough to compensate?”

Four decades had dulled the hurt, but still it stabbed through Obi-Wan’s heart like that red blade had through Qui-Gon’s abdomen.

And through the light shields on their training bond as well, before Obi-Wan could catch it and smother it, because Anakin winced. “Sorry. That was – I didn't think.”

“Don't be sorry.” Obi-Wan shook his head with a gentle smile, and released the pain to the Force. That was then. This was a new now. He shifted sideways and rolled to his feet. “He was, until he wasn't. But perhaps this time there is a different view on things. Wrestle? Or katas?”

Anakin opened his mouth, eyes gleaming, and then visibly changed his mind. “Better be katas. I still gotta learn where my arms and legs end, y'know?”

“I do know,” Obi-Wan told him, wryly. “Pick one you remember well.”

“First Form. Uhm, Third Kata. Quarter-speed, then half.”

The movements were coming easier now, thank the Force and Qui-Gon Jinn, patient with a “padawan” who ought to be nearing the end of his physical training cycle, not the beginning. Oh, Obi-Wan would have retrained himself, certainly; he knew to a very fine point what his body could – should – do, and not reaching that point wasn't an option, but the retraining was more enjoyable – and frustrating and embarrassing, but mostly enjoyable – with Qui-Gon's help. And prodding. What did it say about Obi-Wan that he’d missed the prodding, too?

They ran through the Third Learning Kata twice, and Anakin flashed a grin of triumph at making it through half-speed without more than one mildly botched landing. Obi-Wan nodded at him. “Full-speed.” Anakin stepped back into first position.

This time it almost flowed. Perhaps it was getting off Tatooine and perhaps it was his body feeling more like his own rather than a cast-off he'd had no choice about, but Obi-Wan came closer to the Moment than he'd yet achieved in this life. The Force was _there_ , a wind, an ocean, a web he could almost – almost see.

Anakin's grin, when they finished, was broader than the first time. “That's more like it, you!”

“Indeed. Very good, Padawan.” Qui-Gon came up on Obi-Wan's left side, Depa next to him. Obi-Wan looked up at his teacher with a smile of his own. “What the mind knows,” Qui-Gon said, “the body will remember.”

“I could wish it to remember a bit faster, but yes,” he said, feeling curiously light, and nearly chuckled at Qui-Gon's narrow-eyed look.

“How many of the Forms have you trained in, Obi-Wan?” Depa asked.

“All of them, Master Billaba.”

“Depa,” she corrected, waving off the formal title with a flick of graceful fingers. “All?”

Obi-Wan inclined his head. “Master Depa. Yes. Although I profess only a very imperfect knowledge of the Seventh.”

“That you studied it at all is unusual. It is restricted to Senior Masters.”

“And for very good reason. Juyo is – uncomfortable. Master Windu had the best use of it, I believe, with Vaapad.”

That sent a ripple of varying levels of surprise and shock around the circle, including Micah and Garen, who had joined them. Depa's mouth curved up at the corners. “I find I am much anticipating your conversation with Master Windu,” she said, her eyes bright.

“'Anticipation' is a good word,” Obi-Wan agreed, straight-faced.

“Which is your preferred?” Micah asked.

“Soresu.”

“Not Ataru?” Qui-Gon asked. “You favored that Form more in our training.”

His Master was warm, which only intensified the smell of him. Obi-Wan buried that awareness deep. “I did. It was the one you used the most, and I enjoyed the challenges of the aerials. But it has little in the way of defense and I found that – needful, later on.”

A swell of warmth from Anakin, like a hug around Obi-Wan's shoulders.

“So you'd rather Defend than Attack?”

Obi-Wan looked at Garen, and wondered about the undercurrents in that question. “Why expend myself in Attack when I can let my opponents do it? When they have worn themselves out, I have not. Conservation of resources.”

Garen's expression tightened fractionally.

Obi-Wan studied him. “That bothers you.”

Garen's chin, the same shape as Obi-Wan's but minus the dent, lifted a little. “Soresu is weak, and it's dishonest to lie in wait. Press the attack cleanly, in the open.”

Garen was equating defense with surprise, or entrapment?

Obi-Wan closed his jaw on his immediate retort, letting the sting slide through him and away. The Clone Wars had not and, Force willing, would not happen. This Garen hadn't fought in galaxy-wide conflict, hadn't seen the slaughter of civilians, hadn't lived through the soul-grinding years of a war without honor or quarter. “Soresu has me standing quite cleanly in the open, giving them every chance to hit me. That's hardly uncivilized,” he said mildly.

 

*

 

Qui-Gon listened closely. How would his padawan would respond to Garen's assertions?

Because Qui-Gon knew very well what had fed those assertions: Master Jinn's own Fallen padawan's attempt on the Temple nearly ten years earlier. The plots and traps, the ambush that had nearly killed Garen and had in fact killed both a friend and a long-time tormentor, and all of it in the name of revenge upon the Jedi in general and Qui-Gon in particular.

Coming to a peace about his second padawan had taken Qui-Gon years. Spurred by the no-nonsense intervention of his first padawan, Yoda's stick, and his own Master's particular form of brutally kind honesty, Qui-Gon had finally found the beginnings of healing. Released his guilt and much of his grief, and accepted the hard truth he'd so often counseled others on, but never applied to himself: in the end, the only choices a being can truly affect are their own.

Xanatos Du Crion had made the choice to Fall, and had continued to make that choice every day until he died.

The healing hadn't been continued, though, until a solemn, mischievous, gray-eyed imp of a boy had literally forced his way into Qui-Gon's life through his dreams – with the help of the Force, no doubt.

Qui-Gon had come to a peace, and let it go, but he suspected that Garen had not.

“There's a lack of nobility in pure Defense,” Garen was insisting.

Micah shifted his weight.

“Nobility – and honor – are necessary and worthy goals, crucial parts of every Jedi's life,” Obi-Wan said, softly, his sincerity strong in the Force. “But nobility may not and more frequently _does not protect_ the ones left behind after the honorable death. Does that, then, serve the Light in the long run? No two encounters are the same, of course, but in each one, what truly serves the Will of the Force?”

The sadness beneath the words was nearly tangible.

Garen's mouth opened, and shut again, and he blinked. “I – didn't think of it quite that way,” he said, sounding thoughtful.

“Neither did I, at first.” Obi-Wan's smile was a wry incline of one side of his mouth. “But then, life – and death, and war – happened.”

“’Battle plans rarely survive the first engagement with the enemy’,” Anakin quipped, which had Micah looking down at him with surprise and approval.

“Obi-Wan.”

“Master Micah?”

“I'd like to see you do the Soresu open-hand katas.”

“Not all of them right now, I trust?” Obi-Wan said, his voice dry.

“One or two will suffice,” Micah said, and paused, and looked at Qui-Gon. “If Qui-Gon thinks you're ready.”

 _Nice of you to consult me, Mic,_ Qui-Gon thought. The First and Second Form Learning katas he'd had Obi-Wan concentrating on on Tatooine had left his student sweated-up and trembling, but that had been at the end of harder workouts than this had been so far. “Your choice, Padawan.” _~ Trust the Force.~_

Clear gray-blue eyes studied him for a few moments.

 Then Obi-Wan sketched a bow, and walked into the middle of the mats as everyone else stepped back.

Eyes closed, Obi-Wan centered and Qui-Gon actually felt it down the training bond, felt Obi-Wan sink inward through the mat under his feet and out through the all into one with the Force, the _deep-root sun-warm-sparkle_ of his student's Presence blooming, filling the room.

Obi-Wan stepped into the first position, paused.

Moved.

It was Mastery in motion. Every shift fluid, correct and yet fresh, breathing new life into a form a thousand years old. Not perfect physically, the body was not yet retrained to nearly that level, but passionately serene, serenely joyful.

The Living Force connection his dream padawan had struggled with was _right there_ in this Moment, beneath and around and within, shining, outlining Obi-Wan’s movements in Light Qui-Gon could almost see with regular sight. This was not his padawan performing the kata – this was Obi-Wan Kenobi _being_ the kata.

The world narrowed down to this: hearing nothing but the faint rasp of breathing and the soft thap of Obi-Wan's feet on the mats, seeing nothing but this moving vision. It was beautiful. _Obi-Wan_ was beautiful, in body and in so much more, in soul and motion and Force –

“Beautiful,” Micah murmured as Obi-Wan finished, and Qui-Gon actually twitched to hear his own thought in his friend’s voice. “Well done, Obi-Wan,” Micah said, loud enough to carry.

“Thank you, Master, you are kind,” Obi-Wan said, relaxing out of the kata's last pose, “but I have work to do, especially in those last five positions.”

“No, I'm not,” Micah said.

Obi-Wan looked him. “Not – ?”

“Kind,” Micah clarified. “Just ask my padawan, here. I am not kind, not in this.”

“He's really not,” Garen put in. The young man looked impressed, the feeling trickling through the Force as well.

“I am blunt to the point of insult, if that's what it takes to keep my students alive. Do you need work physically? Yes, to build muscle and stamina, you do, but only for that. You _know_ the kata, as I think you _know_ the Form. I see your Mastery in this.”

It was one of the highest compliments Micah could have given, and Obi-Wan obviously knew it. He bowed his head.

“I second Master Giiett’s assessment,” Depa added. “Well done, Obi-Wan.”

“Thank you, Combat Master, Councilor,” Obi-Wan said softly.

At Qui-Gon's side, Anakin was a ball of brilliant happiness.

“Garen, I'd like you to work with Obi-Wan, if Master Jinn agrees,” Micah said. “There are things you can teach each other. His experience will stretch you, and he'll benefit from pushing against a new opponent, which he needs to help rebuild his stamina. Qui-Gon?”

Pride was unseemly for a Jedi but right at this moment, Qui-Gon didn't care. His heart full, the bond resonating with a cautious kind of joy, he looked at his apprentice. “Obi-Wan? Your choice.”

Obi-Wan broke into a slow smile, and bowed. “I would be honored and delighted to work with Padawan Muln,” he said, the smile fading but a point of happiness in the Force remaining.

“You'd better call me 'Garen' then,” the padawan in question said. “'Padawan Muln' is way too long to yell when you're asking me to let you up.”

Obi-Wan looked at him, and the smile that curved his mouth then was one Qui-Gon hadn't seen before in life: quiet, confident, and irreverent as hell. “You'll have to get used to 'Obi-Wan,' I'm afraid,” was all his padawan said.

Challenge accepted.

Why did that give Qui-Gon an odd sensation down deep in his belly?

“That was beautiful, Ben,” Shmi said. She'd been standing at the edge of the group, quiet until now. “The way you moved, that was truly beautiful.”

Obi-Wan ducked his head and smiled faintly at her, a little shy? “I've looked far better, but – thank you, Shmi.”

 _There's humility and then there's self-deprecation,_ Qui-Gon thought, understanding much more, now, of what was fueling it. They would work on that.

Micah clapped his hands lightly and then opened them in a broad sort of shooing motion. “Off to this side, padawans. Soresu Third Training Kata, I think, first-off, open-hand, I want to see – ”

“Anakin,” Depa said, drawing Qui-Gon's attention back as Micah stepped away.

“Master Billaba?”

“I would like to work with you for a while, to see what you know. I take it you have trained in the Forms as well?”

“Yes, Master,” Anakin said, “although I was taller when I learned them.”

A curl of amusement in the Force. “Your limbs end in different places than you remember, just now?”

“Yes, Master,” Anakin repeated, grinning. “But I can demonstrate for you, if you'll forgive a stumble or two.”

“I will,” Depa said, with the beginnings of a smile. “Show me.”

“Where do you want me to start?”

“Surprise me.”

Anakin blinked, and Qui-Gon wondered what his relationship had been with Depa “before.”

The child moved away into about where Obi-Wan had been on the mats, turned, and bowed. And launched into the first movements of what Qui-Gon immediately recognized as Fifth Form, Djem So – something no seven-year-old being, no matter how precocious, would know.

A thread of startlement from Depa, quickly masked. Despite his young body, Anakin's movements were fluid and sure, different in their way from Obi-Wan's but nearly as lovely.

What a joy he must have been, might yet be, to teach. Qui-Gon smiled to himself.

He stepped away, giving Anakin and Depa room, and Shmi moved with him. He stopped at the edge of the mats by the hull's curve, watching Obi-Wan and Anakin both, but mostly Obi-Wan.

“Master Qui-Gon.”

That brought his head around. “Why use my title now, Shmi?”

“It seems appropriate here, in this setting,” Shmi said softly.

The Force held tension, intent.

“Shmi, no. We are friends, you and I, or I hope that we are, and there's no need for titles. And that word means something vastly different to you and I think to Anakin as well, than it does to me or indeed to any Jedi. I believe that I am coming now to truly understand that difference. Please, don't use it between us.”

It took a moment, but Shmi nodded, and the smile that curved her mouth was a lovely thing. The Force around them hummed, shifted. “Qui-Gon. Is this what you three were doing out there, practicing, in the wastes? These 'Forms'?”

“Mostly, yes.”

“In the dark.”

“Yes.” Caught somewhere between humor and surprise, Qui-Gon touched the Force and no, he _hadn't_ misunderstood. This was right. “Would you like to learn?”

Her eyes widened. “Learn – Jedi things?”

“The simpler open-hand katas, the beginnings: yes, those I can teach you. You would not be at disadvantage until you reached the advanced forms, where use of the Force is required to perform them properly. And the katas lead into some of the basics we teach of self-defense and unarmed combat, and I think that those are not bad things for a free woman, or indeed any free sentient, to know.”

Several Council members were going to have a small bantha over this, no doubt, but that wasn't a bad thing, either.

“You believe I can do this?”

“I do; I would not have offered otherwise,” Qui-Gon said honestly, and a gleam kindled in Shmi's dark brown eyes.

“Then I would like to learn.”

And the Force was warm around them, warm and calm, except – Qui-Gon turned his head.

Except for the barest trickle of – exasperation? – whispering from his padawan. “If you'll excuse me, I believe I'm going to be needed in a minute. Over there.”

Shmi followed his gaze to where Obi-Wan and Garen were face to face in a working kata, with Micah watching closely from the side. “They're testing each other, aren't they? As young beings will do. Especially males,” she said, sounding both dry and fond.

Qui-Gon chuckled. “Humans and Near-Humans in particular. It's genetic, and Jedi are not immune, no matter that some of us would like to believe so.”

He walked closer, Shmi with him after a glance at Anakin, who was still working with Depa, and stopped next to Micah just as Obi-Wan paused and stepped back.

“Garen.” The clipped, elegant tone held no hint of what Qui-Gon had felt across the link. “You know this. Why are you holding back?”

“Hold – I'm not holding back,” Garen sputtered.

“You are.” Obi-Wan looked up at the other padawan, his hands parked on his hips. A teaching mode had fallen over him like a cloak, and he stood utterly unconcerned that Garen had nearly a full head's height on him and outweighed him considerably. It probably looked to Shmi like a very uneven match.

And it was, Qui-Gon was quite sure of that. Just not in the direction first sight would suggest.

“I need you to come at me full-on in order to show you,” Obi-Wan said.

“But you're – ” Garen bit the words off.

Obi-Wan's eyebrows rose. “I'm – what? Shorter? Lighter? You know that doesn't make a difference, or you should.”

Qui-Gon saw Garen's eyes narrow at the reprimand, gentle as it was, and catch the irritation back. “You're not in shape, or you're not in Jedi shape, anyway. I don't want to injure you.”

Obi-Wan's smile was sharp. “I thank you for your concern, truly, but it's misplaced. Now, if you will?” he said, hands dropping back to his sides.

The firming of Garen's mouth was the only warning. He moved, attacking, and Obi-Wan – wasn't there.

Garen's momentum worked against him as Obi-Wan simply slipped out from in front of him in a classic Soresu move.

A moment of shock as Garen recovered and whirled back to stare at Obi-Wan, who waited for him, no discernible expression on his face. And it happened the second time. And the third time, and the fourth as well, with the addition of Obi-Wan's near-hit on Garen's off side, before Micah called a halt.

“That's why you need to work on Soresu, Garen,” Micah said quietly. “You need to expect and counter those moves, both open-hand and armed. You are long past time due on this, Padawan, and that's my fault as much as yours. And you, Obi-Wan,” he said, turning from his own student's somewhat stunned countenance, “were almost too slow.”

“I know,” Obi-Wan said, and Qui-Gon felt only a rueful, open acceptance from him, and a projection of the same that Qui-Gon was sure was deliberate. “As Garen said, I'm out of shape. I can compensate for it, with the Force and with some perhaps sneaky tricks I've learned in hand-to-hand over the years, but only for so long, and then,” he looked at Garen, “you'll have me down. I need practice and quite a lot of it, very badly, if I'm to get anywhere near where I should be. Where I need to be. Will you help me, Garen?” And Obi-Wan held out his hand.

Something – Qui-Gon or the Force itself – seemed to hold a breath –

A slow smile crept up Garen's face, and he moved to clasp Obi-Wan's hand, palm to palm. “Yeah, I will – if you'll teach me some of those sneaky tricks.”

Obi-Wan's own smile broke wide and sunny, the dimples in his cheeks pulling deep. The Force around him brightened, warm and easy, as though a corner had been turned. A pathway opened. “Deal.”

 

* * *


	6. Summation

 

 

Obi-Wan heard the voices before he saw them, but only just.

He'd felt them in the Force, but the shuttle was too small and his Force-sense still too erratic to place where they were. He'd come down the corridor in search of a late ship's-night-shift cup, and by then it was of course too late: sound traveled both ways. “My apologies, Masters, I didn't mean to interrupt. I am driven solely by desire for a cup of tea.”

“You're not interrupting, Obi-Wan,” Micah said. “Qui-Gon's infected you with his love of leaf, then, has he?”

Beside him at the galley table, Depa's mouth turned up at the corners. They sat with cups in front of the both of them, contents perfuming the air with the smells of tea and kaffin. Depa wore full robes with her cowl bunched around her neck, and Micah looked quite comfortable in his synthleather spacer's jacket. Obi-Wan admitted a moment's envy for the warmth of their extra layers.

“It's not his fault, Master Micah, I was a hopeless case before I met him,” he said mournfully. “But I endeavor to persevere.”

“Kaffin’s better, you know; that’s a drink with some body to it.”

“Master Qui-Gon was most complete in the scope of my training,” Obi-Wan returned, his face composed, and sketched a brief bow. “He did teach me to respect all cultures, no matter how strange I personally might find them.”

The noise behind him as he turned to reach for the black tea sounded distinctly like a snort, and the curl of amusement in the Force was unmistakable. “Make your cup and come have a seat with us,” Depa said. “We'd like to speak with you.”

_Yes, I'm sure you do._

Obi-Wan didn't rush his tea – good tea should never be rushed in any case – and took his cup with him to sit at the table, at right angle between Mica and Depa. He took a careful sip, savoring; that wonderful taste wasn't going to become commonplace again for quite a while. “What did you wish to speak about, Master Depa?”

“About you, Obi-Wan.” Depa watched him with that considering gaze, so very familiar from year upon year of Council meetings. “Tell me about yourself.”

He'd been expecting this, was surprised that she hadn't cornered him sooner, in fact, but still … “Respectfully, I'm sure that Master Giiett has repeated my story.”

Depa nodded. “He has, and I understand that you are waiting for the Council to tell the whole of it. Still, I would like to hear it in your own voice.”

And so Obi-Wan told her what he had told Micah, and Qui-Gon, that first night.

Said what he could and held back what he didn't dare voice, not here, not yet, the words nevertheless scrabbling, clawing behind his teeth: the looming cataclysm, the scour of devouring current already beginning to dig, already eating at the foundation pillars of everything he loved –

Obi-Wan fell silent.

“The end of the Republic. The end of the _Jedi_ ,” Depa repeated slowly, confusion/disbelief/resistance furrowing the Force around her. “What, who, did this? By what means?”

And wasn't that a question Obi-Wan had asked himself, over those long years with little else to do except piece together the vast mosaic of failure?

“By what means? A long, slow, subtle campaign. Years, _decades_ of poison applied in the Senate, across the galaxy, drip by patient drip. At the end, the Jedi Order were accused of treason, of trying to overthrow Republic government – and it was believed, almost without question.”

Shock from his listeners, a bitter-sour, metallic taste in the Force.

“The Order was taken unaware and slaughtered by those we trusted. The survivors were hunted down by the New Galactic Empire. Twenty years later there was little left but the occasional believer in a 'hokey religion,' and few who remembered the truth.”

Obi-Wan breathed and let it go, mostly, the pain of those years, and met Depa's eyes. “As to who?” He smiled faintly. “Its name starts with 's'.”

Depa's face betrayed little, but her aura was another matter entirely. “You cannot mean – they are _gone,_ ” she whispered. “For a thousand years the Sith have been gone.”

Obi-Wan's mouth twisted. “'Hard to see, the Dark Side is,'” he quoted, and Depa's eyes went wide. “And it was – right up until the moments before it destroyed us, because we could not, _would not_ see what was in front of us.”

“This is why you're here,” she said, and in that moment Obi-Wan knew she truly believed him. “To prevent this from happening. To preserve the Order.”

Was it? Was that truly the reason he and Anakin were here? It _must_ be, and yet …

“Not the way it is,” Obi-Wan said, and felt Depa's stare like a physical weight. “The Order cannot be preserved the way it is. It must change if it – if we all – are to survive,” Obi-Wan said, and was jolted almost physically by the words coming from his own mouth. A flash of insight – no, not insight.

 _M_ _emory._ Memory of the answer, or one of them, that he'd come to in those decades in the Tatooine wastes, realization carved by stinging sand and annealed in the Force, white-hot and razor-edged. “In my life, there was much said about Balance in the Force. It doesn't mean what you think it does.”

 

*

 

He wanted a moment alone after that, and stepped into the blessedly empty hold, dim and shadowed with the red cast of the ship's night-lighting. They hadn’t bothered to put the mats away – “we’ll go on as we’ve started,” Micah had said, not that there was that much more trip to go, truly. Obi-Wan stepped in a few paces and sank to his knees and right down onto his arse, legs crossed, eyes closed and a faint sigh escaping.

Alone.

It was – harder than he’d imagined, at times; being so close to so many people, so many Jedi, after so long with an eopie as his main living conversationalist … he shook his head at himself. _The irony of that_ _is absolutely cosmic._

No matter.

Obi-Wan breathed deep, in and out, breathed in the stillness and silence, breathed out the noise of himself and opened to the sounds of the Force, the whispers of the ship around him, the faint tang of metal and sweat, the spongy plassro of the mats beneath him, the still quiet of his fellow – Wait. He opened his eyes and looked to his left.

Shmi sat against the far side, in a patch of deeper shadow, one of the big storage boxes between her and the outside wall, eyes closed and perfectly still.

Obi-Wan blinked. Bloody hells, was his Force-sense that obscured, still that – ?

No. It wasn’t himself who was obscured.

It was Shmi. Her normal warm presence in the Force was damped down, pulled in, pulled behind, until she was barely a flicker. How in the galaxy – ?

Flicker to sudden flare and Shmi opened her eyes, as if she'd felt the weight of Obi-Wan's gaze. “Did I disturb you, Ben? I'm sorry, I – ”

“No, don't be; you haven't.” Obi-Wan rose, sparing a moment of satisfaction at how much easier the motion was, and made his way across the mats to sink down again at her side. The plassro made a faint squeak of complaint.

“You didn't disturb me at all, and you were here first in any case. I just – didn't see you.” He looked at her more closely, through Force-sight. “There are more comfortable and warmer places on this ship to hide, you know.”

For that, he got the admonishing eyebrow he'd become familiar with. “I am not hiding, Benjo Lars,” Shmi said, giving him the Look to match the eyebrow. But there were lines around her mouth, and her eyes.

“Is there something – wrong?” Obi-Wan ventured, setting aside the subject of Shmi's Force-abilities for the moment. “Something troubling you?”

Shmi's lips compressed and she stared out into the empty hold. The night-lighting pinked her skin; collected in wine-colored rivulets in her hair and ran red shadows down her tunic. “I don't know how to do this,” she said at last.

“Do what?”

“I've been – I was – a slave since I was perhaps five years old. Where I lived, what I did, what I ate, what I wore – it was all – I had _no choice,_ Ben,” she said. “There was no point in thinking about it; all would be provided or it wouldn't. Now – ” she paused, and Obi-Wan saw her swallow. “Now I must find these things myself, for me and for Ani, if the Jedi will not take him, us, in. I have nothing _but_ choice, and I have to use it wisely. I have to learn – _how_ to be free.”

Obi-Wan stared at her profile and tried to gather words. He'd freed slaves in his time, oh yes he had, and no few of them on Tatooine, freed them and smuggled them off-planet, but how much thought had he ever really given to what happened _after_ the chains were off? “We won't abandon you, the Order won't abandon you,” he said, throat tight, and damned if he knew at that moment just how he'd make that happen, but by the Force, he would.

“The Jedi only take children.”

“To train as knights, yes, but there are far more beings than just the Jedi Order in the Temple. All of those who've chosen to help us, to make sure we have supplies and clothing and, and feed those Jedi like Qui-Gon whose culinary talents are … ” Obi-Wan spread his hands wide and as he'd hoped, Shmi smiled a bit – it had taken very little time for her to discern just how well Qui-Gon Jinn and cooking didn't get along. “The staff who work in the Temple are highly trusted. I don't think – that the Order can pay terribly well but it does pay, and the staff have food and clothing and rooms also, some of them.”

Shmi was looking at him again. “You think that I should work for you? For the Jedi?”

“I think it would be a good way to transition, perhaps, into a life that is your own. And you wouldn't have to be as far away from Anakin.”

Soon as the words left his mouth, Obi-Wan knew he'd mis-stepped.

Shmi's gaze sharpened. “I was told that we were free. Both of us. Qui-Gon was – very plain about that.”

Force. “You _are_ ,” Obi-Wan said. “But Jedi have no ties, no family other than the Order itself. We cannot have divided loyalties that attachments to family or loved ones would bring, the danger that something or someone might be put ahead of our duty to the Order and the direction of the Force.”

“So you would – _this_ is what Ani mentioned before, isn't it? What you tried to explain? The concern about Ani being too old to be accepted. Because he already has ties: to me, his mother.”

Obi-Wan nodded.

“Because you don't believe that beings can be raised to make the right choice, unless they are given no choice _except_ that one? You cut off all of you from family, from love, because some of you _might_ choose that instead?”

Obi-Wan blinked. “I – wouldn't put it that way … ”

Shmi opened her mouth and closed it again, as if she was choosing different words. Her unsparing gaze reminded Obi-Wan, suddenly, of the single time he’d met a Keeper of the Whills and the impression he’d gotten then from that being: not the interest or the looking up to or perhaps even the envy that his fifteen-year-old padawan self had expected; no, none of that.

Only one thing.

Pity.

“I believe your Jedi Order is missing something,” Shmi said, soft but steely, and the words rang something like one clear note in Obi-Wan's head.

“I think … you may well be right,” he said slowly.

Shmi looked down then, as if surprised at herself, and the moment broke. “Well. And, if I'm in the – Temple, already, it may not be so difficult to see Qui-Gon, as well.”

The ringing in his head wasn’t as nice this time. “See Qui-Gon?” Obi-Wan asked.

“Yes. He's offered to teach me some of the beginnings of your ‘Forms’ and of self-defense. I’m honored that he thinks I can learn them, the parts that don’t require the Force.” A soft smile. “It certainly never occurred to me to ask.”

Wait, what? Offered? To teach a non-Jedi _lightsabre katas?_

Offered. Qui-Gon had _offered._

Something prickled beneath Obi-Wan’s heart.

“I have no doubt you can learn most anything you set your mind to, Shmi. In fact, suggest … ” He felt her gaze on the side of his face, and swallowed, and kept his own eyes on what he could see of his hands in the dim. “Suggest to him that he teach you some simple forms of meditation, as well; in fact I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you couldn’t learn to feel the Force, too, in some way.”

Why not, after all? The Force-sensitive _could_ be taught at older ages; surely he'd learned that, if nothing else, in those nineteen years in the desert? If they were going to change the galaxy –

“Ben.”

“I mean, Anakin’s great abilities didn’t spring from no – ”

A hand on his arm. “Ben.”

“Yes?”

“What is it?”

And he wasn’t saying a word, it was utterly unworthy, the very thought, and yet his traitor mouth opened and words spilled out anyway. “Qui-Gon is a wonderful teacher. You’ll learn so much.”

The hand on his arm squeezed, hard. _“Ben.”_

Obi-Wan looked at her and Shmi looked back, her gaze slipping effortlessly through all his fences and walls. “That man,” she said, “thinks the galaxy begins and ends with you. You, Ben.”

Hope thrashed against his ribs like a bird making a sudden bid for freedom before Obi-Wan stilled it again. “He’s happy to have me now after years of only dreaming me. I know he cares for me. He … ”

But Shmi was shaking her head. “It’s more than that. Obi-Wan.” Using his full name, his real name, as she rarely did. “Do you really not see? He loves you.”

Obi-Wan shook his own head. “Perhaps he does, but – ”

A harder squeeze. “He _loves_ you. He _wants_ you.”

 _If only_. Obi-Wan gave a snort and a ragged excuse for a laugh. “He can’t.”

“Ben – ”

“He _can’t_. Even if he did – and he doesn’t – I’m his padawan, Shmi. His apprentice. I came to him as a child, he practically _raised_ me, it would be – ” Willing her to understand. “It'd be the worst kind of abuse of his authority as master; it would shatter one of our most sacred vows.”

“You’re not a child now, Ben. In any sense of the word.”

“That doesn’t matter. My physical age doesn’t matter,” Obi-Wan said, willing her, begging her, to stop. “I’m his _padawan_.”

Shmi's regard didn't drop. “So, you'll relearn what you need to know, and when you're no longer his student, he'll be waiting for you.”

How to tell her that fantasies like this, soft-spun with all the best of intentions, to ease and to help, only ever made things more exquisitely painful in the end? Because they didn't come true, not for him. That wasn't the way the galaxy worked.

He couldn't tell her.

Obi-Wan settled for a small smile. “He has no reason to, but – thank you, Shmi.”

“He has every reason, you thick-headed eopie,” Shmi said in the most loving way possible, and Obi-Wan startled into laughter. “Are all Jedi so stubborn, refusing to see what's right in front of them? At least don't try to tell me you don't love him. Because I know better and so do you.”

Laughter died off, block by the lump in Obi-Wan's throat. “No. I won't try and tell you that.”

Shmi put her arm around him and Obi-Wan let himself be pulled close, and took a little comfort in the smells of sand and human woman and rough cloth, tinged with machine oil.

 

*

 

The Force / _was_ /, always, everywhere, in everything, between everything. Luminous they all were, in the infinite net of energy.

And yet there were differences, place to place – tiny ones, so small as to make no difference in the all, and yet still flavours, perhaps. Like water, subtle in taste depending on where it formed, or what it flowed through, yet always water. A crude analogy really, but the closest Obi-Wan had ever come to finding words to describe the indescribable. Planets were different from one another, and space was different still from any planet or moon that he'd known.

It had been literally decades since he'd meditated between the stars, or any place that wasn't Tatooine. And for five years he had been one with the Force itself, although his memories of that were hazy at best.

Obi-Wan drifted, soaking in the feeling and flow of the Force from this living side of it once again, luxuriating in the infinitesimally small things that whispered of the fullness of the void and of stardust and of the very atoms that built life itself. The damage the drugs had done to his body didn't seem to affect this as much; meditation was still as near-natural to him as breathing, once he could quiet himself enough to _listen_.

And once quiet, the Force was there, as it always was, where it had always been. He had to trust, as Qui-Gon had said, that his ability to _touch_ would be there as well.

He had sought peace after the shock of talking with Depa and Micah and the jolt of that bit of memory regained, after the disquieting wrench of talking with Shmi; after reassuring both Qui-Gon and Anakin that he was fine, he just needed to meditate for a while.  And hopefully subdue the headache that was beginning to nibble again, faintly, at the edges of his skull.

Balance. In the end, it was all about Balance in the Force, but Balance hadn't meant what any Jedi then living had probably ever conceived of, and it most surely wouldn't be the answer they wanted to hear about now. Indeed, the first step was going to be convincing them that they’d been asking the wrong karking Question – from the wrong perspective – for at least several hundred years.

Saving the Order meant nothing less than the cracking open and rearranging of what had hardened over the years from a set of seeking questions into a literal absolute: the Jedi Code.

 _Why,_ he questioned the universe, _do I always seem to get the most “interesting” missions?_ _What did I do_ _to win this prize_ _? Can I_ _give_ _it back?_

There was, of course, no answer to that.

Anakin's Presence settled close to him, familiar and cherished, warm in the metaphysical. The intense, almost uncomfortable brilliance of his padawan had become a comfort in itself after so many years, even threaded with unease as it was – his Signature was as well-loved as Qui-Gon's.

Anakin was there physically too when Obi-Wan finally opened his eyes, bundled in a blanket and cross-legged on the floor at Obi-Wan's side, in their old way. Obi-Wan himself had found comfort in his training under Qui-Gon's gaze and had sat with him face to face, soothed by his master's eyes on him, but Anakin, for whom meditation had never been easy, had only felt stared at. Something else to work on, this time around.

“How soon?” Obi-Wan murmured.

“We'll be coming out of the last jump, into Coruscant's system, in less than half an hour,” Anakin said, quietly, knowing what Obi-Wan was asking. Still that unease. “Y'know, this is gonna be really weird.”

“Because the last two months have of course been quite placid.” That got him a small elbow poked into his side just above his hip. “What's bothering you?”

“Don't try and tell me _you're_ not nervous.”

“I won't, but we're not talking about me.”

“Yet. Maybe we should.”

Gods, but they were both terrible at this, and himself a trained diplomat. But they were learning. “What is it, Anakin?”

Silence.

“Ani?”

A breath of a sigh. “I'm – my first meeting – y'know, with the Council – didn't go real well, did it? Maybe it'll be better this time.”

 _Oh_.

“But I'm focusing on the outcome I want,” Anakin finished, a shade too brightly.

Obi-Wan put his arm around Anakin's shoulders and gathered him in close. Anakin leaned into his side, unhesitating, sharing warmth and himself. So loving and so brave, his padawan. How unbelievably fortunate he was, they both were, to have this second chance. “Not to worry. They'll be so busy shouting at Qui-Gon and having a collective meltdown about me, they won't even notice you. We'll just slip you right in under the scanners.”

Anakin snorted.

“What, don't you think that will work?”

“Well, it's not the craziest plan we've ever come up with, buuut… ”

Obi-Wan pulled out his “best council-pompous” voice. “Not so much with the 'we,' my friend; all the truly crazy plans were yours.”

“Uh-huh. You tell yourself that, but nobody with eyes and a brain believed it.”

“Ah-nakin.”

“Hey, I learned from the best,” Anakin said, snickering, and Obi-Wan hugged him. Force, this was so right, this _felt_ so right, this connection. This love. The Force fairly sang with the serene rightness of it.

Love was _not_ automatically attachment. Was love risky? Oh, yes; yes it was. There could be nothing above a Jedi’s duty to the Force and attachments posed that worst of dangers, but yet to cut one’s self off from love posed a danger just as huge. Love was risky, yes, but it was _not_ a path to the Dark Side as long as the appropriate controls were there.

Shmi was right. Somewhere over the generations, the Order had forgotten, had pulled away, had chosen, _had been taught_ to reject that risk completely – that the only way was in the “safety” of detachment – and in doing so the Jedi had hollowed themselves out. And robbed of that center, the edges ultimately could not, and had not, held.

He heard it again, that snatch of dream –

 

 _“_ _That part of the Code is_ _ **wrong**_ _, Obi-Wan.”_ Anakin's voice.

 

And his own: _“ …_ _I know.”_

 

 _When_ had they had that conversation? _Had_ they really had – ?

“ _Swiftstar_ to Obi-Wan, come in, Obi-Wan.”

Obi-Wan blinked. “I'm here, sorry.”

Anakin's aura rippled with concern and a touch of suspicion. “You're bugged by something too, Master. Give.”

Obi-Wan blinked again and leaned back, enough to look down into sky-blue eyes. And tell them the truth, if not the one he'd just been thinking about. “Shouting. Collective meltdown. The Temple's always been home for me, but – that is no more. Even if Qui-Gon gets me past the Council, the family I had there – never existed, here. And I knew that; I have meditated on it and accepted it; and yet the closer we come to Coruscant… ”

“When.”

“ …beg pardon?”

“ _When_ Master Qui-Gon gets you in past the Council,” Anakin said with perfect confidence. “And _we are_ your family: me and Mom and Master Qui-Gon, and I think Master Micah and Garen too, pretty soon. The rest of them, the ones that matter, they'll come around. An', an' – Padme too, y'know.”

“I know.” Obi-Wan's chest clenched tight, and he rested his mouth against the top of Anakin's head until he could breathe again. “I do know, now. Thank you.”

Anakin leaned a little harder, one arm slipping around Obi-Wan’s waist.

A click, and Garen's voice over the intra-ship comm: “ _Swiftstar_ crew, attention. We'll be dropping back into realspace in just a few minutes; everyone please find a seat, or at least hang on tight to something.”

 _Back to the_ _Moment_ _, Kenobi._ “I'm surprised you're not in the cockpit,” Obi-Wan said, straightening up.

Anakin shrugged. “I'd hafta fight him for the stick, and it wouldn't make a good impression when I won.”

Obi-Wan was still chuckling when he felt the peculiar tickle-kick that was the shuttle leaving hyperspace, and –

It poured across his mind, exploding into his Force-sense like sunlight and cacophony: the hum of hundreds, _**thousands**_ of trained Force-sensitives, an entire Temple full of them – a vast reverberation of Presences where there had been only deathly silence for so long.

Beside him, Anakin gulped and pulled in a sharp breath. _~Alive._ _ **Alive.**_ _Oh, Obi-Wan.~_

 _~I know, ~_ Obi-Wan said, and hugged him again. _~I know._ _It makes the real all_ _that much_ _more_ _real.~_

A minute or two later came a tap at the door, which then slid back to reveal Qui-Gon. “We've emerged from hyperspace, and Garen's getting us into the arrival queue. Traffic doesn't appear to be more badly snarled than the usual, fortunately for us.” He smiled, although Obi-Wan felt his concern about the emotions Obi-Wan and Anakin were leaking all over the room. “We're almost home.”

Obi-Wan looked up at him, standing there, tall and strong and whole. In the Force Qui-Gon was even more, so filled with Light he practically shone with it. Everything Obi-Wan had ever dared to dream of.

“Yes,” Obi-Wan agreed softly, his heart feeling like it might well burst and spill enough jittery nerves and shaky happiness to fill half the ship. “Yes. We're home.”

 

* * *

 

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*

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Fourth story in the Side-Slip 'verse, direct sequel to COIN IN HAND. Thanks as ever to sanerontheinside, fellow Qui/Obi addict and eternal source of encouragement, merry_amelie and anne7 for giving it all a look-see and for posing some really damned good questions, and culturevulture73 just because.


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